Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
Two days ago I wanted to climb Acatenango Volcano. They told me it was hard to climb due to it's altitude and of course, the physical condition one was in. I reckon I meditated on the second, but the first, I thought, was almost the same than in Mexico.
I woke up at 4am. Got picked at 5, two other fellows from Holland were on the group. We got to the base of the hiking trail. We were introduced to our guide and started on a steep slope. "This is a one hour and a half terrain, after zig-zagging through a forest and then another hour in a steeper terrain made of sand and ashes.
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| Acatenango Volcano |
Right away, I felt my heart pumping. It was so intense. On the corner of my eye I could see the corn moving with the wind. The guide and the couple from the Netherlands seemed they were walking in the park, talking to each other, laughing.
At a certain point I started imagining what would happen if I crawled my way up and I just started cracking up. I was sweating in a Vinyasa way, that is, big drops of sweat blocked my vision, a dog passed me by.
They stopped for me at a certain point. I've seen that look because I've been where they were once. I used to hike, long ago. I know what it means to hold off a group like that. I smiled. After half an hour I said. That's it folks. I'm not enjoying this. They knew what that meant. They smiled back. Guide ran down the mountain and after leaving me with a flower farmer, he went back to pick them up.
I accepted my defeat as I looked up at the giant and grinned. Maybe with age there are certain things you come to accept with less regret. It's not that the thought of haven't tried hard enough, didn't come to my mind, nor the fact I could kept with my slow pace and thus conquered the beast. I guess it was a different kind of thing. Where was the wine and cheese? Where were the small interludes of enjoyment while catching your breath? Maybe the quality of hiking became more important than breaking the speed record?
I was content. The flower farmer took me to a house. "Señora, Melquiades sent her back". A woman came out a house built over the soil, all big eyes and smiling she laughed, "you weren't able to climb?" I laughed and said: "No señora, I couldn't! "Please come in", she said, "we'll figure out what to do with you once my husband awakes".
Two dogs, one cat and little chickens were all around. In the kitchen, a beautiful ceramic tile stove had been built. It seemed it was the center of the universe, heat emanating from it comforted me. "Please take a seat", she said something in kaqchikel after and a little girl that emerged from the dark took one chair from a stacked pile and gave it to me. Another kid came in, they were laughing because she wasn't able to get up to go to school. Her hair was all tossed around from the day before in an old loose ponytail. I greeted both of them and remembered I had bought two small wonder eggs for my nieces. The man in Santiago told me you had to place them in water and little critters made of foam would emerge.
I asked one of them for a glass of water. Another girl was instructed something, given some money and went out running, came back with some fresh cheese packed in green leaves. The small girl gave me a plastic cup with water and with the two of them in front of me, I told them I would give them a wonder egg. We dropped one in the water and let it rest there. From time to time we peeked into it with no result at all.
"Get ready for school, come on!" The smallest girl went out the kitchen and into another house as a man emanated from it. This is my husband, the woman said. "Hello! Welcome to my simple house, my name is Emiliano, please sit down, don't worry, this happens all the time. You have two options, you can wait here until the driver comes and picks up another group or you can pay 300 quetzales and they can come and pick you up right away". "Oh, I don't mind waiting", I said. It wasn't that I was stingy, after all, all the money comes to all these people, from the drivers, to the guides... But I was fascinated with being invited into some rituals I might have otherwise, never seen.
Another woman with a baby came out of the other house. "This is my second daughter an my granddaughter". "Hello" she said, the baby was tied to her back, sleepily, silently. They were having breakfast with me. As we were talking, two of the woman were making tortillas by hand and putting them in the steel stove that had some removable pieces to place the pots and pans directly exposed to the fire.
The mother opened up one piece and prepared two eggs for the small one, all ready and waiting for her food. She ate them up with the tortillas and her hands. We all ate a chunk of fresh cheese, making small spoons with tortillas and eating it up. "Want some coffee?" "Sure", I said. I was poured a warm mixture of coffee and a handful of grinded corn with cinnamon. In Mexico we call that pinol or pinole.
I was pounding Emiliano with all my curiosity. I felt humbled by the way these people open up their houses. It's like no evil resides anywhere. He told me about the way he met the people that now employ him. First it was one man taking people up and down, as he was just doing farming, they went by his parcel and he greeted them. After a few more times of seeing each other, this man asked him if he wanted to work with him. "He explained I could help by carrying stuff for the tourists and hikers and that it could be good for my family, I agreed to do it but first he tested me. He put a big chunk of money in one of his bags and he carelessly gave me that bag. I have never touched any money that wasn't mine and after the hike, he told me I was hired. We are now 35 guides that go up and down twice a day sometimes. The volcano has been good to us, he concluded.
He was having breakfast too. An instant noodle soup had been heated on the stove and he was eating it up too. He swiftly got up and said thanks to the whole group of us and said goodbye, he had to get ready for a group arriving at 8 am. He picked some garments out of a corn sack by the floor. The little kid finished her eggs and thanked the group, took her plates to another table and left for school before she peeked into the plastic cup with the wonder egg.
After a while, an old woman came out of the house. Emiliano had told me she had been a little lost on the mind after her stroke. She seemed calmed and gentle and she said thanks to the group after she had a chunk of cheese and tortillas. "I'm going to get some wood". They all told her, that was fine and let her leave the kitchen. I told them I didn't see anything wrong with her, they smiled and said, she no longer leaves the house, she says she's doing things, but that's part of the mental routine we all play along, we say yes and then she goes in the house and stays there.
A little boy came out the house and another woman with a little baby girl introduced herself. She was Emiliano's eldest daughter, her husband is also a guide and had taken a group yesterday for a camping trip up there.
The little boy introduced me to all the animals in the house. Francisco the bull, Cochi the pig and all the roosters and chickens who didn't have a name. I looked around the patio. Clothes were drying on strings, a blue plastic car was on the soil along some wrappers of junk food and corn for the chickens. After the tour, I lent him my phone, I remembered I had some games I played with my nieces and he was fascinated by them. We were all out in the sun, sitting by the patio when I heard the mother say the other group was coming down. "You can leave now! she smiled.
As we walked to the bus, I gave her the money I was supposed to pay at the entrance of the volcano. "No", she said, "please don't feel embarrassed, it was a pleasure". I insisted, it's for the cheese and the tortillas and the time. She unwillingly took the money without feeling insulted. I was taken back to Antigua.
A part of me felt sad. As if I had left behind some good friends I wanted to keep hugging or helping or being in touch. I wanted to send Emiliano good clothing and a special backpack. I wanted to send the younger girl to highscool because I found out elementary school had finished and she couldn't go to higher education because it was too expensive to do so and too dangerous for her to do the trip there and back on her own everyday. I wanted to make a nutrition plan for Emiliano and tell his employers because he told me he sometimes had headaches at the peak of the volcano.
I have never seen people so happy in their environment. Don't get me wrong. I'm not generalising nor saying living in these conditions is conducive to happiness. Terrible injustices and macho dominated cultures have made it clear throughout the centuries. But every now and then, you find good natured people that seem happy the way they live. Either possessing or knowing more is not necessarily the most intelligent way to live when they have the here and the now solved every day.
Will there be tragedies along their way? I'm sure. If Emiliano dies, the responsibility of this or should I say these group of families will most surely fall upon the son-in-law. But I'm almost sure, there will not be so many regrets. For us, who think we can predict and manage the future, there's always so many guilt trips we succumb when life just happens. Did we do the right thing? Did we make the right decisions with all these presented facts of blood sugar and information?
Was I supposed to take this detour? I want to think I did. I want to make sure I understand life is not always where you want to be but enjoying where you end up. I'm not saying do not pursue dreams or lead a goalless life. I'm just saying, the road less travelled is sometimes not a clear cut path of originality and success or cutting strenously with a machete through a closed path. Sometimes life is an acknowledged and vulnerable path that can lead to other places that were as significant than the ones we expected to conquer.
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